5 times
by TonksftMemories
Summary: 5 times it was worse due to stress & 1 time it was okay anyway. Remus' emotions affect the wolf. His monthly transformations are almost always worse in the face of adversity. Spans from 1971 to 1997. 2000 words. Char: Remus, Sirius, Pomfrey, Albus, Tonks
1. 1971

_*To clarify: 1971 is Remus' first year as school._

* * *

_I. __1971*_

Remus tried to sit still but couldn't help from looking around and imagining the state in the morning.

It was all too open, too homely. There were too many cushions and not enough chains. How could the wolf be contained? Did they expect the wolf the curl up amongst the cushions? Next full moon there won't be cushions for him to destroy. That was **if** they decided to keep him for next full moon.

They would probably come up, see the mess he'd made and order him out.

What is he might escaped during the night? The wolf could be clever…

The tingling feeling increased spread from the tips of his body and Remus shivered violently.

He shut his eyes but it was not what he could see that made him scream.

O

"-in every room, Albus. I knew it would be bad when I saw the bloodstains: **everywhere**, Albus. And then when I saw him: shaking and covered in blood. Broken bones, bruises everywhere, cuts-"

Remus listened to the voice, its changes in pace, fraught with emotion, but made no meaning from the words.

The voice faded out and Remus heard footsteps.

His hand groped his side to find himself wearing Hospital Wing blue pajamas. He touched his face and neck and was shocked to not feel the familiar sticky, warm substance that he was used to.

He blinked rather rapidly and pulled himself into a sitting position. He had been lying on the bed. His fantasies on himself simply curling up into bed were squashed as he looked across the shack to find blood splattered across the previously immaculate furniture and flooring.

"Remus", Madam Pomfrey said as she rushed toward him, "No need to rush, your radius is just newly healed- in your arm, that is."

She helped him sit up and Dumbledore stood watching from the corner of the room.

Madam Pomfrey was watching him intently and Remus found it impossible to return her gaze. He felt his face burn as he thought about her seeing him in the morning sitting guiltily in the mess.

"How are you feeling, Remus?" Madam Pomfrey asked concernedly.

"I'm sorry, it's normally not this bad, I'll be better next time-", Remus broke off and his eyes widened and he looked over at Dumbledore, "You're not expelling me, are you?"

Madam Pomfrey and Dumbledore exchanged a look before Madam Pomfrey reassured him quietly, "Shhh Remus, of course we're not expelling you, you were just more hurt then we thought. And if there's anything we can do for that, do you think it was something in the shack? Or perhaps a potion you normally get before the full moon?"

After a brief silence, Dumbledore spoke from the corner, "I'd say it's from the stress, it keeps the wolf more alert and on edge. You won't be able to escape the shack and there's nothing inside the shack we care about except you. **Relax **Remus, you just need to get used to the new environment."

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading. Please leave me a review. I appreciate them no matter how short or negative.**


	2. 1976

_*1976 is in Remus' 6__th__ year._

_

* * *

_

_II. 1976*_

Remus was pacing up and down. It would not, could not happen tonight. Remus knew that there were extra precautions and that Sirius was sorry; beyond sorry: he had practically begged for forgiveness and Sirius had always been the too cool, shrug it off kind of guy.

**No. **No-one would come tonight. He would transform alone and hurt only himself; the one person he didn't care about hurting.

It was simple. It was logical.

But his emotions ignored logic. His imagination disregarded reason.

He shut his eyes and remembered the foreign smell of a person; the aroma to his wolf senses had erupted into a frenzy of bloodlust during the full moon and had faded. In the morning he had smelt the foreign human scent and still felt the lingering bloodlust as his lupine senses remained slightly longer than his lupine body.

He opened his eyes and remembered the clearest recollection he'd had as a wolf: a person by the entrance of the shack. The recollection fuzzy and black and white but he doubted that he would ever forget it.

The scent, the image, the bloodlust;

He kept looking around, constantly felt crowded or puffed.

The scent, the image and the bloodlust was etched in his mind.

O

Madam Pomfrey looked at him sadly, "It's not going to happen again. You should have told me you were worried, I would have given you a calming draught."

"It just would have worn off when I transformed."

Madam Pomfrey shrugged as she ran her wand over the last of the bruises and cuts.

"I know it wasn't going to happen again, I just kept remembering waking up and- not knowing."

Madam Pomfrey gazed at Remus before shaking herself and slowly pulled him to his feet.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading. I always imagine Madam Pomfrey and Remus and quite close. I imagine Remus seeing his transformations as very personal and Madam Pomfrey would have obviously become a part of them throughout his Hogwarts years. I'm very fond of her (and also of Remus, obviously). **

**Please review! A couple of words can make my day or help me improve my fanfiction.**


	3. 1980

_**III. 1980**_

"Sorry Remus," Sirius said, looking across at him, "I'm not going to be able to make it for the full moon. Mad-eye needs me awake for the next day."

"It's alright, James can handle me by hims-", Remus started before abruptly cutting off as he remembered the Potters suddenly going into hiding.

Sirius and Remus held each other's gaze, Sirius frowning as he watched Remus sadly.

"I'll be fine by myself", Remus corrected, "I did it when I was 6, I'm sure I can manage it now."

Sirius was still frowning but shrugged, "Alright, I'll see you later. Take care."

Remus looked outside at the growing moon as Sirius disapperated with a pop. It felt too horribly imaginary to live in a world where his closest friends and their newly born son were being directly threatened by the psychopathic dictator of the time. The concern was all too great and constant for it to seem real. Remus could not imagine a world without his friends. A world without Voldemort was beginning to be unimaginable too, however.

O

Remus awoke with a burning pain in his side and bright light too close to eyes.

"Bloody hell, Remus", a familiar voice muttered from nearby.

Blinking to adjust to the light, Remus looked up. "Padfoot! I thought you had to go with Mad-eye", he said through gritted teeth as the number of areas on his body burning increased tenfold.

"I will be soon but in the meantime I have a certain friend with a ridiculous number of deep cuts and possibly broken ribs."

Remus lay silently and stiffly as Sirius murmured under his breath as his wand traced Remus' many cuts and bruises.

"How are you ribs feeling?" Sirius asked.

"Should be o-", said Remus as he began to pull himself upright before his winced noticeably, "Definitely broken."

"Right, hold still. Episkey."

Sirius waited as Remus' hand tentatively groped his chest and newly repaired ribs and was satisfied that he did not flinch.

"Blimey Remus, even if I had been here last night I'd probably not have been as badly beaten as you after fighting Death Eaters on no sleep. Why was it so bad this time?"

Remus tiredly wiped his hair out of his eyes and replied emotionlessly, "Probably because of the stress; Lily and James, the war…"

Remus' voice drifted off slowly.

"Thanks for checking in on me", he said.

"Get some rest", Sirius replied as he pulled himself up and left.

* * *

**A/N: Sorry for the gap in updates. You're probably sick of hearing this excuse but my external hard-drive broke. Again. I'm going to be super careful with this one though. At least this time I managed to save all of my stuff. Huzzah.**

**So...**

**Accio review?  
**


	4. 1981

_IV. 1981_

He could not think. He did not feel. It was a lack of feeling that was jarring: Emptiness; Nothing.

He was not worried about company. There was not anyone to come. He knew this. But he did not feel it.

James, Lily, Peter,

Black,

They had left.

He did not feel alone but he did not feel anyone's presence.

He only was

Empty;

Blank;

Nothing.

He wanted to scream; he wanted to cry; he wanted to hate Sirius.

Instead he could only hate himself for the emptiness he felt.

O

He woke up and lay on the ground of his basement. He figured that he should start to heal his wounds. But the pain was a refreshing interlude to the emptiness. It made him feel human.

He thought bitterly that it was ironic that turning into a wolf and attacking himself made him feel human.

He needed to do something. He would heal himself.

But as he lay with the excuse to himself of "becoming aware of his injuries" he realized he had been distracted from this by thinking of nothing in particular.

Remus was not sure whether he fell asleep or passed out but he knew that there was no change in amount of emotion he felt. 

Madam Pomfrey's face loomed his own as she briefly ran her wand over his shoulder, healing the last deep cut that remained. He blinked several times before Madam Pomfrey noticed.

"Ah, you're awake", she exclaimed as she straightened up after healing his shoulder.

"Mada-", Remus began to choke out before he had a coughing fit.

"What are you doing here?" Remus asked, looking around to see that he was in his house and that he hadn't gone on some killing spree at Hogwarts before continuing, "How did you get in?"

Madam Pomfrey scrutinized him a moment longer before replying, "I knocked at around 8pm and you didn't answer so Albus helped me get in. You were still in your basement."

Remus felt heat rise to his face and didn't reply.

"Did you want me to stay?", Madam Pomfrey asked.

"You don't have to", Remus answered quickly.

"I know I don't have to. I want to, but I don't want to intrude. I don't want you to be alone if you don't want to."

"I-", Remus started, swallowed hard and then continued, "I need some time for things to- sink in. I'm okay. You should go back to Hogwarts, someone might need _you_."

Madam Pomfrey caught the emphasis on 'you' although it seemed that Remus had not intended him to catch it. She tried not to think of him alone in his small apartment as she got up to leave.

"Don't give up, Remus", she said, looking pleadingly into his eyes.

Her reassuring hand left his shoulder as she left and he was alone once more.

**A/N: I worry about Remus circa 1981. Seriously, all his best friends either died or betrayed him. I don't see him tons of close friends either because of the whole werewolf thing. And since so many other people in the Order died…**

**Life just isn't fair on Remus.**

**And since I'm worrying about the wellbeing of a fictional character, I think that a review would be a nice distraction :)**


	5. 1993

_V. 1993_

Remus downed his last dose of Wolfsbane for the rising full moon. He glanced out the window unconsciously.

He tried to relax or to focus on something else. He compulsively tidied his office under the pretence of readying it for his transformation. However, as he would have his human mind during the transformation, there was really no need.

As the moon rose, he began to shiver and shake violently. He fought the urge to vomit. He wasn't normally this shaky before the full moon, but it was hardly surprising given the events Halloween, a few days ago.

It was _his_ fault that Sirius was able to escape Azkaban. It was his fault that Sirius could get through Hogwarts undetected. It would be his fault if Sirius got into the Gryffindor Tower. It was lucky that the children were at the Halloween feast. It was lucky that the Fat Lady was the only one to get slashed by Sirius' knife.

That it had been on the anniversary of James and Lily's deaths had not slipped his mind. He imagined James and Lily's faces in his mind; disappointed that his cowardice almost lead to the murder of his son. And that Remus had still done nothing to stop it.

It was stupid, foolish optimism. He had managed to kid himself somewhere, in the back of his mind. But Sirius was not the carefree joker that always stood by Remus anymore. He was a murderer. And Remus was a bystander: in some ways, just as bad. He was letting a murderer enter the school: the school where Harry was.

Harry: James' son, with Lily's eyes. He could see her staring back every time he looked at Harry. He could see her praising him at a time when he could see no reason in himself to be praised. In his mind, he saw those warm, kind eyes turn cold as she saw him stand aside and allow a murderer access to Harry.

Some Gryffindor he was. Why had he not told Dumbledore yet?

He had to tell Dumbledore about Sirius. His job was not worth Harry's life. Sirius was a killer.

Why could he not bring himself to call him Black?

He started pacing. He could hear his heartbeat in his ears but he did not want to stop because stopping meant remembering.

He stopped suddenly and let himself fall onto his bed as lights blinked in his eyes. He waited for them to pass but another sensation took over: a lower, queasy sensation.

He sat up just in time to vomit his guts up onto the floor.

He stared at the vomit for a second and felt panicky before he realized why.

He relied on the wolfsbane potion to keep his mind during transformations. As he stared at the vomit he realized that he'd vomited up his dose of wolfsbane.

_**Crap.**_

He couldn't risk running around the castle to find a suitable place to transform this close to moon rise. It was all he could do to cast charms to barricade himself into the room and protective spells on his belongings. 

He'd hoped that since he'd had 6 doses he'd have 6 sevenths of his human mind. But potions aren't like that at all.

**A/N: I had always wondered why in Prisoner of Azkaban after Halloween Remus needs such a long recovery when he has the wolfsbane. Once I realized that it was after Halloween when Sirius almost enters Gryffindor Tower with a knife, this plot bunny came.**

**As always, some reviews would be nice.**


	6. And One Time it Wasn't 1997

_And one time it wasn't_

**_1997_**

"Are you alright?" Tonks asked as Remus rose to leave for the basement to transform.

"I'll be fine", he replied.

"I'll be there in the morning. And the day after that. And after that", Tonks added with conviction.

"I'd very much like you to be", Remus said softly, almost to himself.

O

When he awoke, he looked for pink, not red.

It felt odd to expect the best in spite of the negative track record. After all, on the morning after full moons, blood was far more normal to Remus than a girl with pink hair.

He didn't see it first, he felt it. He felt her soft hair on his back and her touch on her shoulder.

It felt real. It felt necessary.

"Morning, Remus", she said quietly, her mouth close to his ear.

He smiled back.

"Morning."

He needed her; for she was his anchor to hold him down to stop him from drifting.

She had stopped him from drifting over to the fear and dread and in doing so in had avoided it.

She pulled him forward and gave him focus.

She looked up at him as he stroked her pink hair.

The look in her eyes evoked a feeling in Remus that he had no felt in a long time:

Hope.

**A/N: This moment is so delicate in my mind, I hope that I've managed to capture it in this fic. **

**ANYWAY, this is the end of this little ficlet collection (or list fic or whatever you want to call it) I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for reading!**

**Reviews make my smiles happen.**


End file.
